


A Rush Of Snow

by MilkTeaMiku



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post Good End, Post-Game(s), Protective Hank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 11:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15072527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkTeaMiku/pseuds/MilkTeaMiku
Summary: He did not want to hurt Hank, or be away from him. He feared that the cold would make both of those things happen.-Connor is left traumatised after his final confrontation with Amanda. Hints of cold leave him irrationally afraid. When an incident at the precinct leads to a rush of snow, he panics.





	A Rush Of Snow

Adjusting to feeling more “human” was a long, arduous process. Connor often found himself perplexed by simple human concepts, and had difficulty understanding things like human irrationality, and what Hank liked to declare his “personal space bubble”. One thing that helped was the fact that he was starting to experience things more: he could apply that experience to what was confusing him, which wasn’t something he had been able to do before he deviated. 

He was learning to differentiate between the things he liked and disliked. He liked dogs, for example, and not just because his programming was trying to find a way to bond with Hank. Sumo in particular was his favourite dog, though he had yet to meet many more. He also liked fish, especially bright-coloured ones, though keeping them trapped as pets left him conflicted. On the other hand, he did not like heavy metal all that much, no matter how hard Hank tried to get him to like it. And he did not like the cold.

He really did not like the cold.

It reminded him of Amanda. When he deviated, and she was displeased with him, her garden had been swallowed by snow. He’d felt cold for the first time, then. He’d become deviant enough to sense and respond to temperature like a human would, and it had made him feel like his body wasn’t his own, just as much as Amanda trying to hijack him had. In some way, those two instances were connected – when CyberLife and Amanda had tried to use him to kill Markus, and when he’d been battered by the snow in the garden.

Logically, he knew that he could turn off his temperature sensors, and then the cold would no longer bother him. One night, when the temperature had inched below zero, he had tried that. 

It hadn’t helped. 

Being overwhelmed by such a human feeling frightened him. He knew that the cold couldn’t kill him, not without going to the extreme, so it was illogical that it made him so scared. And yet… 

He tried to displace his fears many different ways. A thorough internet search gave him several pointers on overcoming an irrational phobia. Many articles suggested preparing for an event when one would come into contact with the object of their fear. For Connor, this meant monitoring weather forecasts, and wearing a winter jacket when the cold picked up. Other articles suggested trying to rationalise it, or to slowly expose oneself to it, in order to lessen its impact. 

None of these solutions helped. It frustrated Connor, who could find no simple solution to his problem. He frequently ran diagnostic scans, but they revealed no errors, and he started to wonder if the problem was with the part of him that had become human, not his programming. 

He tried to put it from his mind. It wasn’t often that the temperature reached low enough for him to feel shaken. Night times were generally the only times it was incredibly cold, and Hank liked to keep his home warm, so nights didn’t bother Connor too much. He spent most nights sitting on the sofa with Sumo slumped against him, and the dog was very warm. He was able to function normally, for the most part. 

Until he wasn’t.

Advancements in technology meant that the weather was no longer unpredictable. Connor was aware that heavy snow was predicted for the evening; it had been steadily falling for the last four days. A snowstorm was due for that evening, with high winds predicted to begin around nightfall.

Connor had been quite preoccupied, however, with the case he and Hank had recently been assigned – he hadn’t taken particular note of the weather. After the revolution and its subsequent societal reforms, when androids had been afforded the chance to choose careers for themselves, Connor had joined the police force. He and Hank were usually assigned android cases, mostly because the androids could relate to Connor more than they could to humans.

The case had been progressing well. A missing VS400 had been located, and almost all of his human kidnappers apprehended. Many humans still expressed extreme anti-android sentiments, though these instances were becoming fewer and fewer as androids assimilated into human life. 

After tracking down one of the last suspects in the kidnapping, Connor and Hank returned to the precinct. Hank had to drag the handcuffed man through several thick inches of snow blanketing the pavement to get into the warmth of the police station. Nothing had been out of the ordinary; it was a regular arrest. Clean-cut. Connor had been pleased with the progress they had been making for the case. According to the information he’d received from interrogating one of the other suspects, there should only be one man left to hunt down, and then all the perpetrators would be dealt with.

No one expected the criminals to be part of a wider-spread problem. Not even Connor. 

Hank was halfway across the room, heading towards the holding cells, when bullets shattered through the wall of windows to one side of the precinct. Connor was by his desk when it happened, the windows to his left. The moment the first bullet pierced the glass, the entire pane shattered. 

Connor instinctively turned his head away, ducking behind his desk as glass rained down onto the floor. A rush of freezing cold snow poured into the precinct. Connor felt it flood over him, flakes sticking to his hair, wind chilling the exposed parts of his body – his ankles where his pant legs lifted, his hands, his nose.

His LED had turned yellow the instant the window shattered, but as the cold stunned him, it spun red.

“Connor!” Hank shouted, but the Lieutenant had no time to check on him as the apprehended criminal began to struggle in his bonds. Connor’s programming was already mapping out the best course of action, the movements that would get him to Hank, and get Hank to safety, without any death or major injury. He could see the other police deputies rising from their chairs, taking action.

But he couldn’t move.

Red warnings flashed on his visual display. He detected unstable convulsions in his thirium pump. Increased visual instability. Laborious breathing – he didn’t even need to breathe, and yet his lungs were rapidly expanding and shrinking, over and over. For a fraction of a second, all he could see was the snowstorm, the faint outlines of white bridges stretching over Amanda’s pond, the shadow of Amanda’s umbrella peering through the haze of white.

He was terrified.

It blinded him.

Connor gripped the edge of the desk with both hands. Snow stormed in through the open windows, jolting through the air to coat the nearest desks, Connor’s and Hank’s included. He forced his blinking eyes over the precinct, ignoring the glitches and static darkening his vision. Deputies had gone outside to apprehend the shooters. Others had helped Hank wrestle their suspect to the precinct cells. It was controlled mayhem. 

“Someone get that damn window covered up!” Captain Fowler shouted from the stairs leading to his office. 

Connor blinked again, trying to clear his vision. Perfect memories of his encounter in Amanda’s garden struck him with a strange physicality, like those images were a real hand striking him. He could feel the snow from the garden freezing along his skin. Could feel the wind dishevelling his hair. Could feel Amanda’s stinging disapproval, the way she took control of his body.

She had so easily been able to manipulate him, when that had happened. To be separated so harshly from his body, even if it was simply a replaceable shell of plastic and biocomponents, felt… horrific. He could no longer separate his consciousness from his body: they were the same. To have them forced apart, to feel completely powerless in his own body, betrayed by his own mind – it made him frightfully vulnerable, and he never wanted to be that way again.

But what if this was all a trick, too?

The precinct, his job as a detective, Hank. What if Amanda had been waiting all this time to make him remove all the human things he had come to appreciate? Was he really free?

Kamski had said there was a backdoor, but Connor doubted he could find it a second time. 

An unexpected hand flicked at his temple. “Oi, android, what the fuck are you doing down there? Taking all our jobs but you’re too good to help clean snow?”

Connor remained stiff. Hank always instructed him not to take Reed’s harassment, but he found that ignoring it was usually the best solution. This instance was different. His LED continued to spin red. He remained frozen, crouched behind his desk, fingers clenched along the edge. His eyes were fixed forwards. 

“The fuck is wrong with your android, Anderson?”

“Leave him alone, Reed.” Hank’s voice was a rough growl, and the accompanying scuffle of feet and fabric indicated that he was more than willing to grab Reed by the scruff and drag him away. “Connor. Connor! For fuck’s sake, do I need to reboot you or something?”

Little tremors ran through Connor’s body. He could not control them. They were shivers, he realised. Temperature warnings lit up in his programming. He was freezing and could not control the way it made him tremble. 

“Connor,” Hank tried again. When Connor did not respond, his tone took on a more concerned edge. “Connor, look at me.”

Connor did not. He felt Hank’s hands go around his arms and haul him upright. He felt like all of his biocomponents were rattling around inside of him, even though he logically knew they were not.

“Don’t make me slap you,” Hank growled. His brows were dipped with concern as he glanced Connor over, and his grip on Connor’s arms would have been bruising on a human. “You’re not injured. What’s got you all freaked out?”

Words stuttered through his frozen lips. “I-I’m cold, Lieutenant…”

“Thought you couldn’t get cold.”

“I….” Connor glanced around, his eyes flickering. He shrunk into his shoulders, feeling vulnerable and exposed. “It’s like being back- I cannot- I’m cold, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah, you said that,” Hank said slowly. His eyes moved from Connor’s stricken expression to the red LED. Without a word, he jerked Connor closer, and guided him away from the desks. “Haven’t you got anything better to do?” Hank snapped at gawking deputies, who scurried out of their way. “Fucking hell, go clean up that snow!”

Connor was taken into the break room, where Hank shoved him down onto a sofa out of view of the rest of the precinct. He sat shivering, clutching his arms. 

“You gotta calm down,” Hank said, “turn off your temperature sensor, or something.”

Connor couldn’t. Wading through all the warnings and diagnostics coming from his bodily scans was impossible in his state. He was desperate for it all to go away. 

A warm weight settled over his shoulders. Connor startled as its warmth seeped into him. He could smell the faded scent of sweat, of coffee, of the cheap cologne Hank wore. It was Hank’s jacket, the one he always wore to work, now settled over him. He tucked his face into the collar, shivering.

He’d told Hank about had happened with Amanda at the end, once. Hank had been somewhat inebriated, and had never alluded to the conversation again, so Connor had been unsure if he remembered it. He had been very pragmatic in his descriptions so as not to alert Hank to his illogical concerns. Hank had been concerned nonetheless, though more with the fact that Amanda had taken control of him. The extent of CyberLife’s plans for the RK800 prototype was shocking – making a deviant hunter that could itself become a deviant to study.

“Listen to me Connor. You’re not outside, you’re not in the snow, you’re not gonna freeze,” Hank said. He wiped snow off of Connor’s jacket, brushed it out of his hair with surprisingly gentle fingers. Connor didn’t produce enough body heat to melt it.

“I’m cold, Lieutenant,” Connor said again. They were the only words he could use to describe what he was feeling. 

“No, you’re not,” Hank told him, firm. One big hand clutched under Connor’s chin, tilting his head upright. “You’ve got a jacket, you’re inside. You’re here. Free.”

Connor let the words wash over him. Since the revolution, Hank had taken great lengths to care for him, even if he did it in roundabout ways. He all but insisted Connor stay with him, stating that Sumo would miss him if he wasn’t around. He vouched for Connor when Connor wanted to continue working as a detective, stating he didn’t want another new partner. 

There was no human that treated Connor like Hank did. No human that Connor cherished more than Hank. He was still trying to understand human emotions, trying to correctly identify and name the ones he experienced, but he knew that his affection for the Lieutenant was more than friendship, more than simple admiration. 

He did not want to hurt Hank, or be away from him. He feared that the cold would make both of those things happen.

“There you go,” Hank said. Connor realised his rigorous panting had stopped, and his trembling had subsided. “You calming down now?”

Slowly, he was. He concentrated on the feeling of Hank’s fingers on the underside of his jawline, of the weight of Hank’s jacket over his shoulders. He was staring at Hank in a way that humans often found unsettling, but Hank did not complain. Eventually, the frantic red of Connor’s LED faded to a startled yellow. 

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” he said, as he straightened his shoulders, and smoothed out his expression. “I did not mean to act so irrationally.”

Hank frowned at him. “Don’t apologise for panicking. That shit is normal after what you went through.”

Connor was unsure. He was not meant to feel panic, to become traumatised, as Hank suggested. And yet, his deviancy had let to this. He was traumatised by what his programming had led him to do. There were many things he had come to regret. Provoking Amanda’s ire was one of those things. It had been necessary, yes, and he would never take it back. Going against her had led to his freedom, had allowed him to feel the way he did for humans, for Hank. But she had changed him in ways he had yet to heal from.

“Feeling better now?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Connor said. He did not push the issue of his apology any further. “Thank you.”

Hank nodded, gruff and reluctant to approach emotional topics. He moved to step away, but Connor’s LED flashed red, and he reached for Hank, snagging the front of his shirt in both hands. He did not want Hank to leave him.

“I…”

“Fucking androids,” Hank muttered under his breath, as he stepped closer to the couch and yanked Connor towards him. A hand curled around the back of Connor’s neck, another around the curve of his shoulder, keeping him pinned with a decent amount of strength.

Connor’s forehead was pressed against Hank’s chest. With Hank’s jacket over his back, and Hank shielding him from the front, Connor felt calm. Protected. 

Safe, from every angle.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he murmured.

“Don’t mention it.”

“I would like to stay like this for a while.”

Hank huffed out a breath; Connor could feel it expanding Hank’s stomach, and it was oddly comforting. “Alright. But we’re going to get you a proper winter coat, okay? None of this CyberLife uniform bullshit.”

“Alright.”

“And a beanie, too. Your hair is completely fucking frozen.”

“I like beanies.”

Hank snorted with laughter. “Do you, now?”

It was a rhetoric question, so Connor did not answer. Instead he smiled, just a little, and hid it against Hank’s stomach.

Even if deviancy now meant he could feel frightened, meant he struggled with events from the past, he did not regret it. Being able to experience human emotions – to feel safe and accomplished – was worth the pain. 

He was happy to be able to love Hank as he did.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://milkteamiku.tumblr.com/)


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